Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The iPhone is one of the most impressive devices that has been released in the history of electronics, so it's natural that people would turn to the device for more and more of their daily tasks. However, as users have bitten into this Apple device for everything from gaming to online banking to productivity, hackers have seen an opportunity to gain access to secure information.

iOS has a powerful native security system, but it's difficult for the company to keep up with threats from hackers and malware developers. Apple's focus is simply not on competing with malicious users. Luckily, there are companies who are engaged in just that sort of competition, allowing you to stay ahead of security threats. Here are four applications you can use to secure your iPhone.

Find My iPhone:

This free application may well be the best way to secure the physical elements of your iPhone. You can: find exactly where your device is if it seems to be lost or stolen; send a message to the device remotely, asking anyone who finds the device to call you; have an alarm played on the device (even if the phone is on silent mode or has been powered down); and remotely lock or even wipe the system clean.

Find My iPhone is also great for parents seeking a way to keep tabs on their children. With a few simple steps, the tracking feature can be activated, which displays the precise location of the cell phone on a map, pinpointed through both GPS and cell tower triangulation.

Mobile Malwarebytes:

The name "Malwarebytes" is familiar to most PC users, but the company has developed an antivirus solution for the iPhone. While there is a paid version of this application, it offers only a small selection of added features (with real-time protection being the most notable extra). The free version of the app gives unlimited use and offers powerful protection its own. This application is a great way to safeguard yourself against rootkits, keyloggers, Trojan horses, or other malicious code.

Malwarebytes has an excellent reputation as being able to find malware that other software misses, so its new iPhone version is a welcome addition. We have reviewed it here: Pros and Cons of MalwareBytes (Anti-Malware).

Mobile Active Defense:

Mobile Active Defense offers powerful preventative maintenance by filtering your email messages. The goal is to prevents spam emails from ever reaching your inbox. Not only does this spare you the headache of spam, it also filters out emails that contain security risks such as attached viruses or links to malicious websites or phishing scams. Mobile Active Defense touts the brag-worthy statistic of over 100 updates to their database each day.

Webroot Mobile:

For those who are bad at keeping up with virus definition downloads, or who just don't have the space to spare on their iPhone, Webroot offers an innovative solution. By moving their virus definitions to the cloud, Webroot offers virus protection instantly and without the need for any definition updates, making it a great fit for the mobile environment.

Another benefit to Webroot's offering is that it does not slow down the devices it is installed on, as all of the actual "meat" of the program resides on cloud servers.

Whether you're looking to safeguard your iPhone against theft, viral attack, or hacking, these apps will provide the protection you need. As more money is made daily through hacking efforts, including mobile pickpocketing, it pays to have several layers of protection at the same time.

Of course, the best defense is to stay informed, so iPhone users should regularly read tech and security sites, such as ZDnet, on a regular basis.